Dear x,
“The Foolish Old Man Removing a Mountain” is an allegory known to virtuallyevery Chinese. The story tells that in ancient times there was an old foolishman by the name of Yu Gong who was determined to remove the WangWu Mountain, amountain that blocked him and his family from having access to the outsideworld, in an attempt to carve out a road leading to the outside world and hencecreate conditions for his posterity to achieve economic prosperity. The projectwas a Herculean task and, to make the matter worse, the old man was ratheradvanced in age. His neighbors all came to dissuade him from the endeavor. Butthe old man’s answer was that if he should die, his children and grandchildrencould succeed him. The day would come when the mountain could be removedultimately.
Inconceivable as they are, modern versions of this allegory occur in thefrequently impoverished mountain areas in present-day China. The mountain folksresort to primitive manual labor (hence inevitably involving casualties) andsimple tools and usually spend many years, even more than a decade, to open uproutes inch by inch in order to have access to the market outside the deepmountains to sell their farm produce, so that their descendants will no longerbe confined to the kind of isolated and economically unprivileged life that theyare living. As a student with a Master’s degree in Road & RailwayEngineering, I can never maintain a tranquil state of mind whenever I read ofstories of this kind. I tell myself that I have the obligation andresponsibility to help halt this dire reality. For this reason, I am determinedto seek a Ph. D. program in Communication & Transportation at your esteemeduniversity, a program that will enable me to reward my country with my knowledgeof the advanced transportation engineering technology in the world. Of course, Iam soberly aware that to be accepted into your highly-respected program I willinevitably be faced with fierce competitions. Nevertheless, my sound academicbackground, rich work experience and the ability to undertake independentacademic research all testify to my qualifications as a worthy candidate foryour program.
My choice for Industrial and Civil Airport Construction and Highway AirportConstruction and Highway during my undergraduate program at the Department ofCivil Engineering and Architecture, x University, seemed to have derived frommy family tradition. My father has long been a construction engineer and myinterest in civil engineering grew as I saw my father working on constructionplans and drawings and picking up bits and pieces of civil engineeringknowledge. My academic performance at x University, which is a key universityin the country, has been consistently characterized by top ranking, receivingStudent of Excellence award for four consecutive years. My solid andcomprehensive academic foundation and outstanding performance came to theattention of the renowned airport construction expert Prof. xX, under whosedirection I undertook my graduation project Design of an Airport Runway. In thisproject, I completed the overall design of a civil airport together with theairport’s roadnet. The roadnet design fully met the relevant national standardsand the overall airport layout was rationally designed, leading to unanimouslypositive eva luation by the reviewing panel.
My undergraduate program was immediately followed by a postgraduate programat x University, into which I was enrolled in my capacity as the top performerin the entrance examination. On a fiercer lever of competition, I doubled myacademic efforts and managed to be among the top five in my class, winning“Class-A” scholarships. My active involvement in research also bore fruits. Ipublished several research papers, including x, in such central natural sciencejournals as x and x.
Entitled Study of the Low-Noise Mechanism of the Asphalt Pavement, myMaster’s thesis focused on those issues: the mechanism of noise production oftyres, the parameters affecting the tyre’s noise, the noise-absorbing mechanismof asphalt pavement and the pavement configuration parameters affecting thelow-noise asphalt pavement. The thesis offered in-depth analysis of theeffective voidage of the asphalt pavement and the pavement thickness as majorfactors in reducing the noise production. The new subject as well as the uniqueperspectives of my thesis won positive comments from the reviewing panel whorated my work as “significant for the subsequent research on low-noise asphaltpavement”.
My distinguished academic performance and research potential led to myemployment with x Province Expressway Co., Ltd. which made me responsible forthe construction and management of the x Expressway, a key national project. Asa major technical specialist, I was in overall charge of drafting relevanttender documents of pavement，participating in the construction of the roadbed,bridge, and pavement, organizing the spot check of the raw materials for theasphalt pavement, holding meeting to discuss technical details of the asphaltpavement, launching technical trainings and field inspections, implementing theSuperpave projects. The accumulation of rich and comprehensive experience inconstruction and management, and the problem-solving skills, and the ability towork effectively and efficiently, both independently and in teams, are the threemost important results I have achieved. Over the past four years, I have beengiven the “Model Employee” honor in my work performance eva luation.
An equally important component of my employment is my independent researchwork. Two more papers, Construction Craft and Quality Control of SMA andApplication of Superpave in x Kaiyang Expressway were published in x (nationalcore journal of highway transportation). Some experts believe my papers offerdetailed elaboration on highway SMA and Superpave pavement, providing importantreference for the construction of other expressway projects.
While feeling proud for engaging in national-level projects, I have alsogained an insider’s knowledge of China’s underdeveloped conditions of civilengineering in road and highway construction. The areas of study that I willfocus in my proposed Ph.D. program are closely connected with thoseconditions—the methods of designing asphalt mixture, predictive eva luation ofasphalt pavement performance, quality control of asphalt pavement construction,and the regeneration technology of old asphalt pavement. I expect that throughyour program I will be extensively exposed to the latest theoretical andtechnical developments in the world academia and take up fruitful research. Ifyour highly selective program accepts applicants with sound academicperformance, rich work experience and promising research potential, I canassert, without any shame of arrogance, that I am exactly the candidate you arelooking for.
Yours sincerely,